Sweet Dreams
by not.quite.a.pencil
Summary: Years of fighting and war have left an imprint on both Bucky and Steve, leaving them with too many sleepless nights to count. But comfort is something that can appear in many different ways. Slight Steve x Bucky


**There's really a lot of stories about Bucky dealing with his mental state after the events of the Winter Soldier, but i haven't really seen anything that brought up Steve as well. I honestly believe that both of them, including the rest of the avengers would suffer from at least some form of PTSD, and I wanted to bring up how both Steve and Bucky would deal with it and how the other would comfort them. Anyway, I really love this pairing and am hoping to upload a lot more about it, especially with a lot of Fem!Bucky, so i hope you enjoy and look out for more work. Obligatory Disclaimer: I dont own any Marvel anything.**

Sprawled out on the all too warm bed, the dark haired soldier shook from panic and sweated from the terrors that captured his mind.

The war, Hydra's mind fucking and all of those missions never failed to make the most imaginative, yet realistic nightmare to plague him with. But Bucky was strong, he was a soldier. There's no mission that he can't complete flawlessly.

It was all he was.

So shutting away these silly nightmare's shouldn't be a problem, except it's hard to erase the images of people you once knew, once loved, decapitated or mutilated or any other morbid state.

It left the metal armed man paralyzed, panicked, and tense.

He didn't know how long he laid there when there was a creak of his bedroom door and the pale light from the hallway filtered into the dark room Bucky had nested in. Standing tall in the doorway was the most frequent characters in his nightly terrors, a stubborn blonde who always made promises of companionship, happiness and love.

And to make it worse,

He kept every promise.

Bare feet made no noise against the wooden floors and a warm body entered the bed. Bucky's tense for allowed itself to be moved by the super soldier as he was drawn in close to his oldest friends cotton cover chest. With eyes clenched shut the darker haired male gripped his companions shirt in a rare moment of weakness, of vulnerability. Flesh and metal hands wrinkled the soft fabric in an attempted to convey things that couldn't be spoken yet while a set of warm, calloused hands wrapped around the tense figure and drew soothing circles.

In this strange moment of comfort Bucky allowed himself to be comforted in this silence by the gentle hands and the steady heartbeat of the man he risked so much for, and who had risked just as much in return.

* * *

The red glowing numbers on the clock said that it was in the later hours of the evening, when normal people would be sleeping in their beds, but it felt so much later. Sitting rather rigidly on the couch the blonde sat with his fingers intertwined as his thoughts continued to wander about his head.

So much had happened since he woke up from being frozen and on some nights, like this one, it was hard to process it all. The blonde man mourned the loss of the life he known and the one he could of had. Even though he loved his new life and the world that came with it, there was an aching sense of longing for something that felt like the home he had known so long ago.

So when Steve couldn't find his smile, the couch was where he spent the night as he contemplated everything.

But after reuniting with a link to his past, an old friend, the couch would support two.

Both would sit in silence and let their minds go where they felt like going, even if they'd regret reliving the memories there. It was a strange ritual that never had any set of rules or traditions.

Sometimes there were drinks to numb the ache, other not.

Sometimes they'd eventually head off to try to get some rest, other not.

But on a particularly rough night for the super soldier something completely out of the ordinary happened. In the midst of the dark and silence, a cold metal hand reached out out to grip his own clammy one. And the comfort in that ome action was more then Steve thought possible.


End file.
